HAPPY ENDING AFTER CULTURES COLLIDE

Amelia Glynn

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, April 23, 2006

During its early days, AgeSong had a neighborly agreement with the Palestinian market across the street. The Brazilian restaurant below Hayes Valley Care would purchase its produce from the market and, in return, AgeSong employees were welcome to park in their lot.

While Nader Shabahangi was overseas, courting a woman in Poland, the restaurant managers began buying their produce elsewhere. Because the Shabahangis are of Persian decent and considered "family" to the Palestinians, this produce-purchasing indiscretion was forgiven but not forgotten.

A few months later, a showdown ensued between the Palestinian grandfather and an American social worker employed by AgeSong. He was methodically sweeping the parking lot and she was running late. She wanted to park in the last open spot; he wanted to finish sweeping it. In a blink of an eye, "thousands of years of conflict and misunderstanding came to a head," Shabahangi said.

AgeSong's parking privileges were revoked, and when the Palestinian family sold the property, AgeSong was not invited to submit a bid.

As luck would have it, the buyers turned out to be an American and -- you guessed it -- Persian developer team. They now are silent partners in the new property, AgeSong Boulevard.